Bad News for Netflix Freeloaders - Time to Get Your Own Accounts

posted by RJ Johnson - @rickerthewriter -
Jan 10, 2019

If you like to Netflix and chill using someone else's password, we've got some bad news for you. A U.K.-based company says they've created software that has the ability to track users who share accounts and passwords for their favorite online streaming service.

Synamedia is showing off the "Credentials Sharing Insight" tool at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The technology "combats the rapid rise in account sharing between friends and families, turning it instead into a new revenue-generating opportunity for operators" the company says. The software works by deciphering unusual or extreme patterns by users of streaming service accounts.

"It uses AI, machine learning and behavioral analytics to identify, monitor and analyze credentials sharing activity across consumer accounts,” the company said in a statement. “It allows operators to turn casual sharing into incremental revenue, as well as detect and apply enforcement procedures on fraudulent, for-profit credentials sharing accounts.”

According to one survey, nearly 26 percent of millennials use a password from someone else's account to binge-watch shows on an online streaming service.

Chief product officer, Jean Marc Racine, said people sharing passwords has become too popular and too expensive for streaming companies to ignore.

"Many casual users will be happy to pay an additional fee for a premium, shared service with a greater number of concurrent users. It's a great way to keep honest people honest while benefiting from an incremental revenue stream," said Racine.